Tag Archives | Dow Chemical

Foresight, and long-term relationships, have paid off for Dow. Yesterday, CEO Andrew Liveris announced that a binding agreement has now been signed with Kuwait’s PIC to form K-Dow Petrochemicals. PIC will pay $2bn less for their stake than originally agreed a year ago. This represents an exceptionally good outcome for Dow, given what has happened […]

Back in August, the blog noted that BASF chairman Jurgen Hambrecht was forecasting that “the world will still continue to grow respectably”, although he foresaw a temporary slowdown into H1 2009. Yesterday, however, this mood of relative optimism had disappeared as BASF announced Q3 results. Hambrecht is now forecasting, along with Dow’s Andrew Liveris, that […]

Dow’s potential interest in Rohm & Haas had been much rumoured since December, when it announced the petchem/polymer JV with Kuwait’s PIC. That deal has yet to close, but further evidence of the growing link with Kuwait comes with the news that the Kuwait Investment Authority will invest $1bn as part of Dow’s financing for […]

Its now a year since the blog started. Since then, 213 postings have appeared. It is now read in 72 countries and 620 cities (shown above). Most encouragingly, readership continues to steadily increase. Since January, it has risen a further 301%. The blog’s aim is to identify ‘the influences that may shape the chemical industry […]

US economic conditions are ‘ominous”, and may worsen into 2009, according to Dow CEO, Andrew Liveris. “A month ago we might have said … the US slowdown could be bottoming, but I don’t think it is bottoming,” Liveris said in response to analysts’ questions at an investor conference in New York. He added that “I […]

Dow today announced that it is raising prices for ‘all of its products by up to 20 percent – depending on their exposure to rising energy, feedstock and transportation costs – and will review all terms to all customers’. Dow CEO, Andrew Liveris, said that Dow’s ‘first quarter feedstock and energy bill leapt a staggering […]

Its not normally a good sign when chemical industry bosses feel the need to cheerlead on the outlook for the economy. Dow’s CEO Andrew Liveris therefore caught my attention at Davos, when he told CNBC that talk of recession was ‘over-reaction’. Particularly when he then corrected himself, adding that what he had meant to say […]

Andrew Liveris, Dow’s CEO, commented today that Dow now have ‘a total clampdown on costs and capital expenditure’. Whilst other CEO’s told the Financial Times that ‘rising oil prices, sagging consumer confidence and the on-going credit crunch’ are causing them to put in place ‘contingency plans to protect against the expected economic downturn’. Separately, Bill […]

Dow has been unique amongst the world’s largest petchem companies in not being integrated upstream into oil and refining. This position will change dramatically at the end of 2008, when its newly-announced JV with the PIC subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum opens for business. Not only will Dow then integrate its ethylene/PE business, but it will […]

Coal-to-chemicals just took a further step towards becoming a major source of chemical production once again. Yesterday, major coal producer Shenhua Energy listed on the Shanghai stock exchange, and saw its shares jump 93% to value it at $173bn. Shenhua is the world’s second largest seller of coal, after the US’s Peabody Energy, and it […]

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Paul Hodges is Chairman of International eChem, trusted commercial advisers to the global chemical industry.

The aim of this blog is to share ideas about the influences that may shape the chemical industry over the next 12 – 18 months. It will try to look behind today’s headlines, to understand what may happen next in important issues such as oil prices, economic growth and the environment. We may also have some fun, investigating a few of the more offbeat events that take place from time to time. Please do join me and share your thoughts.

Between us, we will hopefully develop useful insights into the key factors that will drive the industry's future performance.